Ring The Bell Podcast Wrap Up

Happy Friday! Thanks to Justin Twell (@JustinTwell78) for the segment we did for Wednesday’s show with Week 3 picks, Minnesota Vikings, Green Bay Packers and more. Be sure to check out Inside The Pylon and read his great work there. You can find my own work there too including my latest DFS Diary.

In today’s show we asked whether we will let Cam Newton live already? Newton is a grown man who should be allowed to determine what’s best for him and his family. Not everyone wants to protest or be an advocate and that is okay.

Guys, Cam Newton doesnt need to think like you or express himself like you to be black. We dont all share one brain. Lets seek &pursue peace

We all come to enlightenment in our own way and in our own space. Colin Kaepernick, who jump started this valuable conversation in our country, came to his own personal advocacy in his own time. Not everyone changes the world in a big way. Sometimes, its the small steps that make all the difference.

We can all be better friends, better neighbors, and better co-workers. In our own interpersonal communications we can change a life and maybe, just maybe, change our own little worlds. They say all politics is local and change most frequently occurs in small minute levels.

Let’s be that change.

In our first guest segment, we welcomed Tim Torch (@TimNFL) to the show with your weekly fantasy football fix. We discussed who to start and sit this week plus top tight end options. Want to play DFS? We gave you tips on it as well.

In our main topic, we ask why isn’t it time to eliminate drug testing in sports, and discussed marijuana legalization as well.

Doug Logan, who helped spearhead the sports drug war first as head of Major League Soccer and then as head of USATF, underwent a conversion on drug testing in sports similar to my own. Like me, Logan was a proponent of the paternalistic model of sports drug testing that assumed athletes didn’t know the risks or weren’t capable of judging the risks of doping. We do so love to legislate “morality.”

Lets eliminate drugs (not the regulated taxable ones those are okay) because we need to protect everyone them from themselves. (Sarcasm font) A lot of this parallels our nation’s own failed “War On Drugs” where we spent mega amounts of money and ended up punishing the economically disadvantaged while separating families.

“This is a war we have not won, cannot win, and should not be involved with,” Doug Logan

Fortunately, there is a new wave of thinking populated by academics and policy makers who think otherwise. As Vice Sports puts it in this article:

The war on doping, they contend, has done far more harm than good: wasting money, retarding, fostering corruption, and trampling on athletes’ rights and dignity while failing to protect their health. The Drugs Won: The Case for Ending the Sports War On Doping by Patrick Hubry (@Patrick_Hubry)

Competitors have always tried to get advantage. They always will. Athletes do a lot simply to stay on the field. Just read this Jason Taylor article from Dan LeBetard back in 2013. Tell me how drugs deemed bad but that might help speed healing and assist with the recovery process should be eliminated?

Prohibition has never worked in anything.

Finally, we discussed Nashville, Tennessee’s proposal to legalize marijuana in this week’s Chopping It Up segment. Why do the police want discretion in continuing to issue marijuana citations? Is it perhaps becasue they want to continue the status quo and use weed as a pretext? Maybe!

You can listen to Friday’s podcast here. Follow Sharona on twitter at @SportsBySharona.